Norwich Independent Spiritual Congregation

I find it difficult sometimes to determine where to draw the line between generosity and firmness. I know that in the field of psychology the knowledge of this is called boundary setting. But the confusion is greater than that, it has to do with knowing whom you owe the most frith to, and how much compasion you should extend to people who are in need.

For example, do you stop to pick up the hitchiker on a cold and wintery day? Chances are that if there are kids in the car, you would choose not to, having heard the stories about hitchiker axe murderers and not wanting to put your children at risk. Fear for family is reinforced by media, and by social agencies. Now anyone who finds themselves walking in the cold is automatically placed into the category of axe murderer and is to be shunned even if they are simply someone who is down on their luck and just trying to get home to their own kids. You never know, and increasingly we are disconnected from each other so that we must view all people with fear and suspicion.

Is this healthy, is this wholesome? For those who have had bad experiences because they extended their trust to the wrong people, the answer is unequivocably yes. For them the motto rings true “better safe than sorry”. But what about those who are so afraid to trust, that they cut themselves off and place themselves in a place with no friends or companions. Is fear and suspicion healthy for those people. What becomes of them when they find themselves down on their luck walking home in the snow?

In recent readings I have been exploring I have run across sites that indicate that we are run by a devilish group of folks who seek only to oppress us through every conceivable trick of the law. I can certainly see how in our ever increasingly disconnected society, that could easily be the best explanation for the observed phenomena. Nevertheless, it seems to me that one of the key ingredints to the demise of the soul within our society is the fact that we do not know how to balance love and severity.

There are times when a compassionate helping hand is needed, but then there are times when the exact opposite is required. Enabling people does them more harm then good. Yet therein lies the crux of the question, at what point does positive helping become negative enabling? To what extent do you turn your back upon a friend or stranger because you are concerned about what the impact of helping them might have upon your own life and the lives of your family members?

In days of old people needed each other more and were more likely to help a stranger than they are today. This was because there was a shared expectation of reciprocity and a common code of ethics among most people. Our society is different now. We are integrating more perspecitves and points of view, all the while, our leaders are increasingly pathological and corrupt and have jaded us to our fellow man.

Where does trust end and self defense begin. I believe that this may be one of the central spiritual questions of our time. Is there a systemic solution or is it simply up to each individual to decide how best to position themselves within this declining situation? At what point (if ever) and at what cost will the pendulum swing, and people will embrace trust and love over fear and severity?

I don’t claim to be either right or wrong. But here is what I have perceived in my quest for truth and my opening to the truth.

I have percieved that the “Unity of God” concept is an important tool in aligning oneself with the law. It allows you to communicate with an all knowing all powerful being who can shape the Universe to instruct you at his will. I use him because in this manifestation he is most appropriate to the feeling and sense of the being. When the time comes to make a choice, it is HE who drafts the agreement and warns you of the consequences.

I have percieved that “Goddess” can bring comfort and healing to the heart that weeps. She can wipe the tears and hold you accountable. When the time comes for you to pay up and answer for the consequences of your choices, it is SHE who gives you comfort as you work through the learning. It is she who patiently explains to you how to avoid making the same mistake in the future.

I have percieved that there are millions upon millions of intelligences, that every molecule of the universe seems to have an individual intelligence, and that it is the intelligences beyond the veil that are responsible for most of the physical laws of the universe.

I have perceived that we are all a part of god, that we are all god, and that the universe is an illusion created by consensus and agreement between the individual perceptions of the individual intelligences that participate in the show. It is a dance of lovers, billions upon trillions upon quadrillions of lovers.

I believe at this point that the natural law is the ease that comes from following the path of least resistance in navigating the ever changing waters of the grand agreement. That the universe is the grand agreement. That we are all part of it’s creation and we are all subject to its arbitration. We hold each other accountable even while we sleep the slumber of confusion.

There exists the possibility of heaven on earth as promised in the Christian bible, but it must come with consent. It will be a new dance between new consenting adults so to speak in which love is the law, love that honors the will of each dancer, without the need for fear or dominion.

Allah Be Praised,
Goddess Be Praised,
Buddah Be Praised,
“Praise Jesus and AMEN!”,
Lucifer be Praised,
Promethius we honor your sacrifice,
Let every man and woman know the Dao.

(OM)

I have recently made a new friend in Colorado. He has a fantastic site worth reading http://www.roage.com.

I have copied one of his stories and placed it here for your perusal, but all credit goes to him and those whom he would credit.

The Man In His Cage by Roage

What evil trick has man fallen for that lead to this life we lead? We were once awake, free and conscious of that which men call God.

One day a man, being bored, in his idle time wondered that if there was a “good” force, meaning God, then there could be “bad” force. He became frightened of these thoughts. So rattled by this fiction was he that the man asked God to build a protective barrier to keep this “bad” force at bay and to protect him from this bad mental creation. As is often the case “could” becomes “should” and the man’s confusion drove him to action. God did not want to impinge on the free thought of his creation and thought it best to warn the man rather then allow the man to learn the lesson of his mistake. God told man, “You have confused yourself. You should not dabble in this fiction as it is folly and there will be consequences.” “What consequences?” the man replied. “You could lose yourself, forget all about me and even convince yourself that you can die” God explained. The man laughed, “Never!” The man became insistent that God build him a barrier to this “bad” force.

So God constructed this protective barrier for the man as the man requested and made the walls stronger then the man could breach. The man was pleased and walked inside and tested the walls. The man said, “I feel secure in here but the walls are confining and it is dark in here. Can you make the walls invisible and such that I cannot perceive that they are there? “Shall I do so?” God asked. “Yes, and can I leave at any time?” the man asked, “Yes” answered God. The man thought about it. He asked, “Can you make it so the barrier moves with me so that I cannot accidentally leave it even if I tried?” “Yes”, answered God. “Can you make the barrier larger then the earth so I can go where I please.” “I will not do that”, answered God, “There are other men and women on the earth that are not afflicted with your confused fear and I will not subject them against their will to your confusion.” The man thought about it for a while and asked, “If I can convince them all that they are better of within the barrier then without and they choose to enter then you will expand the barrier to accommodate them?” asked the man. “Yes”, answered God. “Under these conditions”, God added, “You cannot use force to bring people inside the barrier. They must enter willingly and know what they are giving up. Also”, God continued, “When a man or woman convinces themselves that they died then they will be removed from the barrier and rendered unable to return.” The man agreed.

The man set about his task of recruiting companions. Most shook their heads and said, “You are confused. There is no “bad” force.” The man was undeterred, “You cannot know this bad force as it looks just like God and speaks with his voice.” Soon, as word of his protective barrier spread, more people willingly entered the enclosure fearing this unseen “bad” force.

The man choose a wife from the multitude that now inhabited the ever expanding barrier and she bore him a child. “I wish my child to be protected within the barrier.” The man declared. “No!” God said, “The child is free to come and go until he is at an age where he can choose for himself.” The man was not pleased and since the child could not see the barrier the man choose to withhold that knowledge from his child. When the time came when the child grew to the age of consent the man told him that he was better off within barrier then without and used fear to influence his child’s will.

It was not long before all men and women had chosen to enter the barrier. As God predicted those that had died were removed from the barrier and never returned. God said, “This is madness! When will you cease this nonsense?” The people within the barrier became afraid and said, “You are the ‘bad’ force. Be gone from our sight and never trouble us again!” God reluctantly complied.

Many generations had come and gone. The people did not pass on the knowledge of the barrier to their children had all forgotten of the barrier’s existence. Without the counsel of God, men and women engaged in ever more self-destructive behaviors. They were now firmly convinced that death was the end and God was a powerless force as only “bad” things were happening. Many did not even believe in God and tried to make friends with this fictional “bad” force by employing more and more complicated fictional procedures and rules.

God, complying with the wishes of their parents, was left outside of the barrier unwilling to break his word, by the people’s request, kept from taking action. The people within began suffering in ignorance and pleaded to God for help. God sent messengers into the enclosure to try to teach them where they went wrong. God continued to honor his word. A few people listened and heeded God’s direction and although they remained in the cage their lives became better for doing so. However, most had become confused and a few people even sought to dominate the rest. They used the fear of the “bad” force to scare people into submission. Things became worse.

God decided that he would enter the enclosure in the form of a man and teach those inside of the barrier and what it is like to live free on the outside and the proper ways to live. He said death is not the end and you can live free and not be confined in the barrier. The people would have none of it. Those that dominated the rest attacked God in his disguise and attacked those people that choose to listen to his words. They tortured and destroyed the disguise and it became lifeless. God left the barrier to observe if the lesson had been learned. Some had retained the knowledge of the barrier and how to escape. Those that dominated sought out those who were free and convinced them that they would be provided everything if they would not reveal the secret on how to become free. Those who were free conceded and lived like kings. Those that dominated then located all writings and references to the secret and killed all people that were still trying to learn the secret. The people were threatened with torture and death if they sought to escape and be free of the barrier. They lied and said if you do not obey us then the “bad” force will make you die forever.

Even with that, the secret was spreading. It became necessary to create a structure to manage the people who were looking for God. Those that dominated had destroyed all references to the secret of freedom but allowed some of the proper ways to live to remain. They then made a hero of the disguised man. They codified the proper ways to live among other things in a book and threatened the people that they should look no farther then the book for answers.

The children of those that escaped by listening to the words of the disguised man, after a few generations, themselves forgot the secret to escape and the secret remained only with those that dominated. The people were not only firmly under the domination of the few but captive within the barrier. As time went on a few of the enslaved people, through following the proper ways to live, began stumbling upon the secret. They created a nation and began living outside the power of those that dominated. That again would not do, so those that dominated decided that they had to corrupt the people and confuse them that God was a fiction. They invented new fictions to confuse the people and made those that sought to obey the proper ways a laughingstock so that the people would abandon their search and once engage is self-destructive behaviors.

Then one day, an odd man thought, “what if what is happening in my life is a lie? What if the man in the disguise was right? What if I do live forever? If there was a God then what do I need to do to find him and ask him to make me free?” So he set about his life to find this God that people referred to but could not see. God saw this initiative and began giving this odd man clues. The clues were subtle and only for the odd man to see. Men standing right next to the odd man attributed these strange occurrences to chance or luck. The special occurrences and events stuck out in the odd man’s mind because he had thoughts come to him coincidently about what was about to happen had already prepared him for what he was to see. The odd man noted that he could not relay these thoughts to others as they would not listen or believe. It raised even more questions in the odd man’s mind like, “What if these curious coincidences, that are happening more frequently, are not coincidences at all? Where were these thoughts coming from? How is it that I became perfectly positioned to see these wondrous events and had this foreknowledge?”

As time went on the odd man noticed that he was being led and sometimes had no choice but to see the clues that God was sending him, in his mind, in his life and that he was amassing interesting knowledge and views that no one around him shared. The odd man then concluded that these wondrous things could only be the work of this unseen God. He began to address the open air to prompt this unseen God to communicate in a voice that he could hear. God did not answer but more thoughts came to his mind. They were specific rules by which he would be allowed to perceive God without seeing God or hearing God. The odd man then studied the rules so that he knew them by heart. The rules provided all that he must do and they were surprisingly simple.

God watched from outside of the barrier and decided that those, like this odd man, who could not be logically held to the original agreement, truly wished to be free and acknowledged that God would free them would be given the secret and could count on God’s assistance. To protect these free people, like the odd man, God would allow them to live unnoticed by the confused people and even unnoticed by those that dominate. These free people remain undetectable and appear as any other man or woman but they are free of the barrier. God communicates with them in ways the confused, or those that dominate, are not able to perceive. The secret is only available to those who really want to be free and are willing to allow God to protect them.

Years went by as the odd man mulled over the rules and procedure in his mind. He noticed that things in his life were changing. He found he was not free to do certain things and he was being led somewhere. He could not yet discern the reason but he had attributed it to God. Towards the end he found that had little freedom to do anything he wanted. In a fit of frustration the odd man decide that he would try to comply with the rules and the procedure.

Suddenly, the odd man was startled when he was able to perceive God. He was able to communicate with God freely. It was not that he could see God or hear God but he could know in his mind with absolute certainty that God was there and what God was telling and teaching him. The odd man then understood why man had chosen that God remain silent and that God was simply complying with man’s will.

The odd man was allowed to share his secret only with those others that God deemed ready to be free and only those people. Those that were not ready would not understand, not believe or simply be distracted from the secret knowledge the odd man relayed.

The odd man also realized that God decided that the original experiment had run its course. He could not allow the confusion to continue. God decided that most people had become so confused that they had no chance of ever returning on their own. God would decide to allow the rest of the people to “die” their painful “death” and at last break free of the barrier. It pained God but most people willfully decided to remain confused and engage in self-destructive behaviors. God simply complied with their wish. To allow them to suffer in the cage no longer served a valuable purpose as the lesson was learned but the way back for these people was obscured and out of their reach as they chose to be so confused.

Now if you are such a man or woman that wishes to be free. The only thing that keeps you enslaved is fear of this thing called “death” or the intimidation of those that dominate. One can easily live free on this earth, free from the confused and free from those few people that dominate. The barrier is a fiction that we have ourselves constructed along with the fictional reason for the barrier in the first place. When we really want out and we can face our unfounded fear, we can live free of this fictional barrier or this fictional “bad” force. We are then free on this earth and live side by side with the confused. They will not know. How can they? God does not permit them to know. That is the protection that God offers. They cannot see or think that we can be free while they remain enslaved. Those that “die” are also free but they are not allowed return to the cage. Why would anyone want to anyway? It is, after all, a stupid idea.

If you are interested in knowing how things are instead of what we are told and want to know how to escape then Click Here.

You must remember that if you truly do not wish to be free and you do not want to meet God then the words will not have meaning, they will be confusing or you will not be able to allow yourself to believe.